The first two items, below, appeared separately
in the Around Naples Encyclopedia on the dates
indicated and have been consolidated onto a single
page here. After that, there is an update from March
2012 and one from March 2014.

entry June 2003

1. The Villa Comunale
& Dohrn Aquarium

The Villa
Comunale is the most prominent and
visible park in the city of Naples. It stands on
reclaimed land, for, as early prints show, the sea once
came right up to a rather swampy area, the site mostly
of fishermen's houses. It wasn't until the 16th century,
the beginning of the Spanish viceroyship, that a general
campaign was undertaken to make the land suitable for
the construction of the fashionable villas that sprang
up in the 1600s along that section of the sea front. (Click here for a related
item.)

The Villa was the result
of the wishes of King Ferdinand
IV, who, in 1788, decided he wanted a large wooded
area along the sea for members of the royal family to
stroll in. The park, thus, was open to the public only
one day a year, for the Festival
of Piedigrotta. They say that many marriage
contracts of the day even stipulated the husband's duty
to take his wife to the gardens on that day each year.
The park was opened to the general public on a permanent
basis in 1869 after the unification of Italy. The
seaside road, via Caracciolo, which now lies between the
aquarium and the sea, is another, more recent
reclamation project added to the topography of the city.
Until 1900, the sea rolled up to the villa, itself, and
coach traffic passed along the Riviera di Chiaia, the
road now bounding the inner side of the park.

The Villa
Comunale houses the Anton Dohrn Aquarium (phots,
above and right). In 1870 Anton Dohrn (1840-1909),
German zoologist and disciple of Darwin, requested and
got permission to build a “Zoological Station”—an
aquarium—in Naples. He was given a site within the Villa
Comunale; the project was begun in 1872 under Oscar
Capocci and finished by the German architect Adolf von
Hildebrand. Interesting artwork within the Florentine
Renaissance building include murals by the German artist
Hans von Mareès, who drew inspiration from
characteristic fishing scenes of the Mediterranean,
especially Naples and Sorrento. Since its inception, the
aquarium in Naples has not only served as an exhibition
of marine flora and fauna, but has also been a working
research facility in marine biology.

The entire Villa
Comunale underwent remodeling a couple of years
ago. There seem to be fewer trees than before. Some call
it "pruning back". Some call it firewood. I haven't made
up my mind.

[2011 update: The condition of the trees in the Villa
is precarious at the moment due to the presence of the
palm tree pest. See this link.]

entry Mar. 2003

2. aquarium, villa comunale

Elia Mannetta, the engineer from
Baltimore who built the new aquarium in Genoa, will be
in Naples in a week or so to help decide if the city of
Naples needs a new aquarium and, if so, where to put it.
There are three candidates: (1) in San Giovanni a
Teduccio, a suburb of Naples just to the east along the
coast; (2) Bagnoli, where a new aquarium would fit in
nicely with the pedagogical ambitions of the Science
City exposition and fair grounds as well as with a
general rejuvenation of the area after decades of decay;
(3) in the Villa Comunale, where a new aquarium would
take the place of the older one, the Anton Dohrn
Aquarium, in place since the 1870s. Choice number 2,
Bagnoli, is probably the strongest candidate.

Very few Neapolitans would
like to see the Villa Comunale dug up and closed again
(as it was a few years ago for restoration) or see the
current aquarium demolished. It fits in with the general
old-fashioned atmosphere of the park—classical statues,
fountains, gazebo/bandstands, etc.—though that, too, has
changed a bit since the recent overhaul. Not only did
they chop down a lot of trees but they replaced a number
of 19th–century metal scrolls and curlicues along the
fence with more modern bulletoid metalwork that has
already midwifed an entire repertoire of suppository
jokes.

I get suspicious when
they start chopping down trees in Naples, as they are
about to do once again in the Villa Comunale, the large
public park along the sea-side (see entries directly
above this one). Thirty-one trees are destined to be
removed "in the interest of public safety," according to
a spokesman for the city. Most of those trees are either
diseased or unstable; those that are neither, but that
are precariously close to buildings in the villa (such
as the large Dohrn aquarium, visible in the photo) will,
says the city, not get the axe, but just the shovel and
be moved, if possible, to a safer location.The last time they did this
was a few years ago when they remodeled the villa (item
1, above). To my, admittedly, non-expert eye, all they
did was make a quaint 1890s bit of charm a lot less
green and a lot more metallic. On the other hand, they
tell me that in the tough times after the end of WW II
in Naples, the park was totally denuded of anything that
could be used as firewood, after which, however, the
park again prospered and staged a fine comeback. And, of
course, at one time (in the 1600s) there was no park
there at all. It was scraggly and brackish beach. So I
suppose things could be worse.Trees that have to be moved
because they endanger buildings and passers-by —well,
that is reasonable; trees or tree branches can fallon
people, injuring and even killing them. (The most famous
case in Naples that I remember is this one.) In the case of
diseased trees, that is still a problem that Naples and
other Mediterranean cities are struggling to cope with.
The tree pest (the red palm weevil,Rhynchophorus
ferrugineus) still exists in the city and, to my
knowledge, no miracle cure has presented itself. That
insect attacks only certain kinds of palm trees, but oak
and pine in the villa are also set upon by certain
wood-boring insects. So you save some and lose
others. It's not an easy battle. (For more on the tree
pest, see this link.) Unstable trees are a
peculiar problem because the causes are not clear. At
least a few geologists have speculated that construction
of the number 6
train line of the new Naples subway (adjacent to the
park on the north side) may be responsible. Faulty
engineering interfered with the underground aquifer in
the area, causing the collapse
last year of a building along the proposed route.
Work on the train line has since been halted; a major
street on the surface next to the park has been closed
and traffic has had to be rerouted. It may be that
underground work also blocked the natural flow of fresh
rain water into the soil of the park, water that
nourishes tree roots. In the place of fresh water, there
is now sea water seeping in from the landfill beneath
via Caracciolo on the other side of the park and rotting
the roots.*Woodman, Spare
that Tree is the title and first line of a poem by
American poet and song writer, George Pope Morris
(1802-1864) first published in the January of
1837, under the title The Oak. It was then
set to music by Henry Russell.